GIGABYTE Aivia Uranium Review

👤by Tim Harmer Comments 📅18-10-13
Introduction



Product On Review: Aivia Uranium
Manufacturer: GIGABYTE
MSRP: £99.95 (inc. V.A.T.)

GIGABYTE are best known for their best-selling range of graphics cards and motherboards, spanning the full range of budgets and performance requirements. However we were reacquainted with their Aivia peripheral range earlier this year through the Aivia Osmium, a mechanical keyboard which seduced us with excellent build quality and feature set. Since then the Osmium has added Cherry MX Brown switches to its arsenal, adding more choice to the EU market where switch variations tend to be limited. The Krypton mouse too has brought with it some success, and included some premium touches. But we’re not here to talk about the Osmium, Krypton or GIGABYTE’s excellent component line. Time for something new.



This week GIGABYTE are introducing the Aivia Uranium to the market for the first time. We initially saw the mouse at the GIGABYTE Tech Tour in the Spring, and although the focus was on an altogether more high-profile product (a new SOC GTX TITAN with updated WindforceX3 cooler) the Uranium was quickly turning heads thanks to a new take on a problem long in the making.

Mice have, for around the last five years, included on-board memory for storing key settings and later macros. As macros became more complicated the on-board processor for the mice tended to be beefed up, requiring more power and also incrementally more USB bandwidth. The trouble is that mouse wireless technology is limited by wireless conditions, some of which can be overcome but become compounded by a macro data stream in addition to normal mouse movement. Furthermore writing data into flash memory on a mouse over wireless can take some time, potentially an unacceptable length of time, thanks to asynchronous data transmission rates. Something has to give.

Other manufacturers have moved to eliminating on-board memory entirely from some models. Razer is a prime example; their Synapse 2.0 software moves the load entirely to the CPU with the consequence of reducing bandwidth requirements. However this means that Synapse software needs to be installed on every PC you intend to use the mouse’s macro functionality with as well as implementing an additional means to migrate settings, an unacceptable policy for some including many LAN event organisers.

GIGABYTE are approaching the problem in a different way - by separating the mouse and the memory. Enter the GHOST Macro Station, a wireless base station which translates in real time mouse inputs into macros. Consequently only button inputs are ever sent wirelessly, which in theory reduces the potential for lag and an unsatisfying gameplay experience. However because it doesn’t rely on system software for an interpretive layer it can be migrated between PCs whilst retaining all macro information.

The GHOST Macro Station utilises a crisp OLED display for important information such as active profile and current DPI, offloading the power overhead that would have on the mouse. The mouse can get on with the job of tracking human input, with streamlined functionality allowing it to squeeze out a claimed 50 hours of continuous gameplay or 2 weeks of balanced use from a single charge of its AA NiMH batteries.

However the proof of the pudding is in the eating, so lets dive in..


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